Prince Harry’s Las Vegas Visit Recalled in Father-in-Law’s TV Interview

Posted on: March 11, 2021, 04:42h. 

Last updated on: March 11, 2021, 05:32h.

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A remark this week from the estranged father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, revived stories of then-single Prince Harry’s 2012 visit to Las Vegas. The trip include nude photographs of Harry at a Las Vegas hotel-casino.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain this week, Thomas Markle, 76, criticized Prince Harry, saying he himself had made mistakes, but had “never played pool naked, and I’ve never dressed up like Hitler.” 

Markle’s remarks came after an interview that Oprah Winfrey conducted with Harry and the former Meghan Markle. That interview first aired Sunday. 

Thomas Markle, who did not attend his daughter’s London wedding in 2018, has said that was the point where “we pretty much said goodbye.” He said they were last in touch while texting when he was in a hospital bed for a heart attack, according to media accounts.

The naked pool remark apparently referenced photographs from 2012, when Harry was 27, showing him nude in a luxury suite at a hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Harry reportedly had been involved in a game of strip billiards. In one photograph, a nude Harry is seen hugging an unidentified nude woman.

During the Las Vegas visit, the prince and his entourage were spotted at the MGM Grand pool venue, SW Steakhouse at Wynn Las Vegas and other settings, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The nude photos were snapped at the Wynn Las Vegas, the newspaper reported.

Markle’s Hitler remark seemed to refer to photographs that emerged from a 2005 costume party showing Harry in Nazi attire.

Harry later apologized for the nude incident in Las Vegas and earlier Hitler attire.

‘Random Naked Hugs’

The British tabloids played up the Las Vegas trip and photographs. The story also received coverage globally. 

One woman who claimed to have been there that night later offered details published in the New Zealand Herald and elsewhere.

British-born Carrie Reichert said that in Harry’s room, “Music was going, alcohol was flowing.” 

“Harry was already undressed. It was just crazy. He looked actually delirious. There was a pool table and he was playing air guitar with pool sticks,” Reichert said.

“He was just really friendly, and there were just really random naked hugs,” she said. “It was funny.”

According to an account published on the New Zealand Herald website,  Reichert said she and Harry engaged in a 15-20 minute “drunken fumble” in a separate room.

He told me I was beautiful and ­gorgeous, which was sweet,” she said. “Then we kind of nonchalantly returned to the party and kept drinking.”

Reichert told the Daily Mirror the nude woman photographed in the suite with Harry “was an American girl.”

“She was very slender, really cute and pretty, kind of shy, and she also seemed really drunk,” Reichert said.

Harry Delivers Apology

According to the BBC, Harry said of the Las Vegas episode, “At the end of the day I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down.”

In addition to extensive media coverage, the royal family also is the subject of interest among oddsmakers, as happened when Harry and Meghan’s son Archie was born.